You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group the group while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
